Welcome! This guide thoroughly explains the fundamentals of LoL. You don't need much game knowledge to have fun, but if you're ready to grow into a competent and competitive player, then this guide is for you

Using the Guide

The best way to learn is to alternate play and study. Start with in-game tools like the Tutorial and Intro Bots, formulate questions, then find answers with the guide.

This guide is not intended to be read in one sitting. Pace yourself.

If you encounter an unfamiliar term or concept, look for it in other chapters. CTRL+F is your friend!

Icons, Spoilers, & Color Coding

Icons are MOBAFire links that reveal information when the cursor is hovered over them:

About Me

I'm an ordinary player who enjoys community. Come learn with me as I live stream gameplay on Twitch or find me in-game (NA server; IGN: The All Tomato). You can also check out my MOBAfire bio and Twitch info.

Getting Started

What is League of Legends?

League of Legends is a type of game called a MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena). 2 teams seek to destroy each other's base in an intense real-time strategy (RTS) brawl. Players control and customize a single character, and work with their teammates to accumulate resources and outplay foes.

Each match, players choose the character they wish to play from a roster of over 120 champions, and customize this champion with the resources they earn. Every match is a fresh start - in-game customization does not carry over.

Player Accounts

Visit the official League of Legends website to create an account and download the game.

You, the player, are titled a Summoner. Your account has Summoner levels; the max is 30. Play to level up and unlock new queue types, game modes, summoner spells, mastery points, and rune slots (discussed later).

Influence Points (IP) are currency earned by playing. Use IP to unlock content such as champions.

Most content can be unlocked with Riot Points (RP), currency bought with money. Skins, a cosmetic feature, can only be bought with RP.

The Free Champion Rotation is a group of ten champions unlocked for all players, which changes every week. Before level 6, players can use the New Player Champion Rotation, a selection of straightforward champions that are forgiving to learn with.

Play each free champion at least once. Some are more difficult, and you may not like them all, but you will learn more quickly.

Every 22 hours, accounts are given a win-of-the-day bonus that grants 150 bonus IP for victory. Play regularly for sweet moolah

Runes can only be purchased with IP. If you are willing to commit money to this game, buy the more expensive champions with RP instead of IP. You'll need lots of IP for runes after level 20. Keep an eye on weekly champion sales.

Riot Games offers free skins for following social media. If you don't already own the champion when you unlock the skin, you get them for free! Here is a reddit post that links to each region's offers. Don't get scammed by other offers for free skins or RP! ALWAYS make sure these come from OFFICIAL Riot Games sources.

Accounts are given 3 refund credits - these do not replenish.

Champions

Champions are the player-controlled characters. They begin each game at level 1 and have a maximum level of 18, becoming more powerful with each level.

Each champion has a basic attack, a passive, and 4 abilities:

A basic attack (auto attack, AA) is performed by right-clicking an enemy. They are either melee orranged. Ranged champions fire an auto attack projectile that follows targets. Champions automatically attack enemies in range (by default; this can be turned off), and attack continuously until commanded otherwise. Each champion's attack is a little different; some take longer to complete a single attack, and some ranged champions' attack projectiles travel more slowly than others.

The passive is an innate characteristic that affects gameplay, but does not require buttons to be pressed.

The 4 abilities (skills, spells) are the unique actions available to a champion. Most have 3 basicabilities and 1 ultimate (ult, ulti), which is their most powerful or defining. Basic abilities have 5 ranks each, advanced with the ability points acquired on leveling up. The ultimate ability has 3 ranks and can be advanced at levels 6, 11, and 16.

Azir's passive requires a right click to activate. Kalista's gives her a unique item that requires activation.

Graves's and Jhin's basic attacks function differently than other champions. Jayce, Elise, Nidalee, Gnar, and Shyvana have ultimates that transform them, granting new basic abilities, or modifying their existing 3. Karma and Heimerdinger have ultimates that grant special effects to their basic abilities. A few of these champions () have their ultimates already learned at level 1, with a total of 4 ranks.Some champions like Lee Sin can cast abilities twice in a short time frame for extra effects.Only one champion - Udyr - has no ultimate, and instead has 4 basic abilities called "stances". Udyr does this purely to disrespect those who try to write general guides.

Damage Types

Champions can deal 3 types of damage:

Physical damage is dealt through all basic attacks, and some abilities.

Magic damage is dealt through most (but not all) abilities, and can be added to basic attacks.

True damage is rare, and comes from various sources. It cannot be mitigated, whereas physical and magical damage can.

'Magic' and 'physical' are merely game mechanic terms, and are not related to the action a champion is performing. For example, Sejuani's Flail of the Northern Winds, an attack where she physically swings her weapon, deals magic damage. All basic attacks deal physical damage, whether it's with fists, fireballs, bullets, or bolts of arcane power.

When multiple damage types are dealt from a single source, it is termed mixed damage.

Champion Roles

Champions fill 6 different roles. They often have primary and secondary roles.

Mages (ability power carries, APC) are powerful casters who use their abilities to deal magic damage and disrupt enemies. They are typically ranged, and have low defenses to balance out their offensive capability.

Marksmen (attack damage carries, ADC) primarily use their ranged basic attacks to deal sustained physical damage to single targets, termed damage-per-second (DPS). They are characterized by abilities and passives that boost their attack damage, attack speed, or range. Fragile marksmen must work hard to stay at range to survive.

Tanks are typically melee and have high defenses, but relatively low damage output. Their job is to disrupt, disable, and protect. Tanks can take a beating, and are usually the first in a fight and the last ones out.

Fighters (bruisers) are typically melee, and combine moderate damage and defense. Due to their medium survivability and damage, fighters are capable duelists. Many are physical damage-oriented, some are magic, while others deal a mixture.

Supports excel at protecting and empowering allies, and/or disrupting enemies. Utility, usefulness other than damage, is their defining trait, along with a sacrificial playstyle. Supports have two sub-roles - ranged mage supports, and melee tank supports.

Assassins have extreme mobility and massive damage output, called burst damage for the short time it takes to deal. They can nearly instantly kill non-tanks. If caught, fragile assassins die just as quickly, and must use their mobility to get in and out of fights at the right time. There are both physical and magic damage assassins.

Statistics

Statistics (stats) are the numerical values that describe all units and structures, including champions, minions, and turrets. Understanding what these numbers mean, and how they relate to one another, is a crucial step to League mastery. I'll focus my explanation on champions.

Base stats are the default values a champion begins a game with. Most grow with level.

Mana regeneration (Mp5): The amount of mana restored passively every 5 seconds. Like HP5, this effect takes place every half second.

Armor (AR): Reduces incoming physical damage. Each point of armor makes HP 1% more effective against physical damage. For example, a champion with 100 HP and 0 armor will be killed by 100 physical damage. With 100 armor this champion has 100% more effective HP, meaning it will take 200 physical damage to kill them.

Magic Resist (MR): Reduces incoming magic damage. MR functions exactly like armor, except against magic damage. All champions have 30 base MR, but only some gain it per level.

Attack Damage (AD): The amount of physical damage dealt by one basic attack.

Attack Speed (AS, ASPD): The number of basic attacks performed per second. This has a cap of 2.5.

Range: The number of in-game units a basic attack reaches. Range does not increase with level (except Tristana's, because of her passive Draw a Bead).

Movement Speed (MS): The number of in-game units a champion travels per second. This does not increase with levels.

Bonus Statistics

These only come from abilities, passives, items, runes, and masteries:

Ability Power (AP): Ability Power points enhance most abilities. This will be covered more in the "Abilities" chapter. When attacking structures, basic attacks apply the higher of a champion's bonus attack damage or 40% of their ability power.

Magic Penetration (MPen): functions the same as armor penetration, except for magic damage against magic resist.

Flat penetration is applied after percentage penetration. If an opponent has 100 resistance, and you have 35% penetration and 10 flat penetration, they will effectively have 55 resist against your attacks.

Penetration cannot affect resistances beyond 0, however, some items and abilities offer reduction, that can reduce resistances to negative amounts and result in bonus damage. This is true for BOTH armor and magic penetration.

Lifesteal (LS): The percentage of damage dealt from basic attacks returned as hitpoints. Heal yourself by attacking enemies!

Spell Vamp (SV): Same concept as lifesteal, but for abilities, summoner spells, and item actives.

Tenacity: Reduces the duration of disables by a percentage. For example, Lux can root enemies for 2 seconds using Light Binding, but enemies with 35% Tenacity will only be rooted for 1.3 seconds.

Other:

Gold per 10 seconds (Gp10): All champions passively earn gold at the same rate, which can be slightly increased with items, masteries, or runes. Technically, this is not a stat, but a system that behaves like one.

Abilities

This chapter explains general concepts and terminology. To learn about a specific champion's abilities click a portrait on the Champion Info page, or use the League of Legends wiki.

To learn about ideal skill orders, I recommend using online guides for a specific champion. However, I can offer a few general tips:

Determine which basic ability has a champion's most meaningful damage and/or utility, and max it before the others. For many champions, this choice is always the same; other champions can make reactive choices.

Determine what abilites, if any, are '1-point wonders' (utility-oriented abilities that only need 1 rank to get their job done). Rank these once, but max them last.

By level 4, each basic ability should be ranked at least once.

Put a point in the ultimate ability whenever possible - at levels 6, 11, and 16.

What Do Abilities Do?

Abilities have a multitude of effects, some of which are unique to a champion! Often, a single ability has more than one effect. These are the most common:

Knockup, Knock Aside, and Knockback: The target is made airborne and is unable to move, cast abilities, or attack. This can't be reduced by tenacity.

Pull, Grab, and Fling: Displace targets to a specified location.

Forced Action: The target is unable to move, cast abilities, or attack, and performs the action specified by the ability. For example, taunts force targets to attack the source. Flees force targets to walk away with reduced movement speed.

Suppression: The target is unable to move, cast abilities, attack, or use summoner spells.

Soft CC:

Root (snare, bind): The target becomes trapped where they are standing, unable to move.

Attack modifiers: give special effects to basic attacks. Some are attack resets, which allow a champion to attack in quick succession when used immediately after completing a basic attack.

Some abilities apply on-hit effects, which normally only occur on basic attacks. Examples of on-hit effects include lifesteal, Spellblade from the item Sheen, and Nami's attack modifier Tidecaller's Blessing.

Passive effects occur without activation, as long as the ability has been ranked with an ability point. Don't confuse these with a champion's passive!

How Do Abilities Work?

Cost: the amount of resource consumed per cast. Champions have finite resource pools; if this pool is empty, abilities can't be used. Most champions use mana, but some use their health or rapidly-regenerating energy. Some have no resource, and therefore no costs.

Scaling: the way stats increase the power of an ability. Scaling is specified by a ratio, which adds a portion of the relevant stat to the base value.

Range: the measure of an ability's reach. Range is illustrated by range indicators. Abilities with globalrange can be used anywhere on the map.

Cast time: the delay between cast and effect. This is usually illustrated with a wind-up animation (for example, Annie rearing back to throw Incinerate, or Ashe drawing her bowstring to fire Volley.) Most are brief (~.5 seconds). Some abilities cast instantly.

Channels: abilities with interruptable cast times. Interrupts put the ability on cooldown, without its effect occurring. This can be done by the caster through movement, ability, or attack commands, or by enemies through crowd control.

Auto-targeted: when cast, affects all those in range. No aiming required.

Targeted: requires the cursor to be over a target that is visible and in range. Most of these cannot be dodged and will follow the target regardless of its movement.

Skillshot: require aiming using the cursor. These come in many shapes and sizes, such as linear projectiles, conic spreads, or circles. Skillshots can be missed or avoided--aim carefully!

Area-of-effect (AoE): can affect multiple units in one cast.

Single-target: affects only one unit per cast.

Aura: passively buffs or debuffs units in an area around the caster.

Items

Items give champions bonus stats, and also special attributes:

Actives are essentially extra abilities, used with the number key assigned to the item slot occupied. Examples include Zhonya's Hourglass, Youmuu's Ghostblade, and Ravenous Hydra.

Unique passives and actives of the same name do not stack. This means owning two items with the same unique active/passive will only give the benefit of one. For example, owning 2 Zhonya's Hourglass and using 1 will put both on cooldown.

Purchased items occupy 1 of 6 item slots and take effect immediately; there is no need to "equip" them.Consumables like Health Potions and elixirs don't do anything until consumed by using the number key of their item slot.

Basic items are the starting point in every item's recipe. Different items use the same basic items, allowing adaptive build strategies.

Items don't apply real-world logic. Boots of Speed are an important item on Nami, a mermaid with no feet. Infinity Edge is a sword that is core on Ashe, an archer. The stats granted, not the name or icon, are what matters.

Choosing Items

Itemization choices are called a build.

To build appropriately, ask yourself these questions:

What is my champion's role?

What statistics and attributes does my champion need to perform this role?

What statistics and attributes will help me against the enemies I am facing this match?

Use items to amplify strengths, or make up for weaknesses. A champion's core items often vary only slightly, but you should always build in response to match-specific situations. Varying build order, even among the same items, can make a huge difference!

Choose how you build carefully. Rushing an item means only buying its components until completion. Building several items too slowly can delay a power spike, but rushing one item can mean missing essential stats from others.

Maximize power and gold efficiency by choosing items that complement each other. A simple example is the relationship between resistances and health - health from one item will benefit from the magic resist/armor from another, and vice versa.

Do not copy the bots' item builds seen when playing Co-op vs AI. They are intentionally poor.

Here's a more complex example of complementary items, featuring Blade of the Ruined King and Youmuu's Ghostblade:

Wit's End, which shares a component with BotRK and gives similar on-hit damage and attack speed, does not pair well with Youmuu's Ghostblade, because its on-hit damage is magical.

Annie is a mage. She needs mana and ability power for her abilities, and health and resistances to protect her because of her short range. This makes Rod of Ages a good item to rush, since its passive needs time to stack. Rabadon's Deathcap and Void Staff are fitting offensive choices. For defense, Annie can use items like Abyssal Scepter against magic damage, or Zhonya's Hourglass against physical damage. Remember, all of these items are built from components! Annie could build a Negatron Cloak or a Seeker's Armguard to get the requisite resistances before completing Hourglass or Abyssal Scepter.

Ashe is a marksman who needs attack damage, attack speed, armor penetration, and critical strike chance to boost her basic attacks. Her main damage ability, Volley, scales with AD, and her passive Frost Shot makes crit particularly efficient, so Infinity Edge is a great first buy. Items like Berserker's Greaves, Rapid Firecannon, and Lord Dominik's Regards are good ways to round out her build. Lifesteal is a good defensive statistic for marksmen, so Ashe could include an early Vampiric Scepterbefore finishing a complete The Bloodthirster.

Garen is a fighter who needs defensive stats to survive charging the front lines. His passive Perseverance and his ability Courage make health and resistances extremely cost-effective. Sunfire Cape, Warmog's Armor, and Spirit Visage are perfect choices. Offensive items like The Black Cleaver make Judgment and Decisive Strike hit much harder.

Summoner Spells

Summoner spells are chosen before each match in champion select. They have long cooldowns, ranging from 60 seconds to 5 minutes. They are unlocked at different summoner levels, and are all unlocked by summoner level 10.

You can take any combination of spells, but the best choices vary. Think about the champion, role, and position you're playing, and the champions you are facing.

Mouse over the icons below to learn what each spell does. I will share some common uses of each.

Flash (fl) is regarded as mandatory on nearly all champions, due to its power and versatility. It allows instantaneous re-positioning. Use it to dodge skill shots, land abilities, cross terrain and obstacles, escape, or chase enemies. Max travel range: 400 units.

Ghost is for escaping or chasing enemies. Moving through units, also known as avoiding unit collision, means a champion won't have to walk around minions, etc.

Heal is for restoring HP during combat or countering harass. The movement speed boost allows for escaping or chasing. It's especially popular in duo lanes, since it effects the caster and an ally, but remember, stacking multiple Heals isn't effective due to the 50% reduced healing for 35 seconds.

Barrier is powerful protection for fragile champions such as mages and marksmen. It's an alternative to summoner heal, as it has a lower cooldown and shields for more HP, but using it well requires precise timing. It's easy to waste if you predict your enemy's attacks wrong.

Cleanse aids fragile champions such as mages and marksmen who can be devastated by crowd control, giving them a chance to escape or fight back. "Summoner spell debuffs" refers to Exhaust and Ignite.

Exhaust (exh) can be used defensively to prevent an enemy dealing damage and chasing, or offensively to prevent retaliation or escape. Exhaust is especially effective against burst champions like assassins.

Ignite (ign) is a popular choice for securing kills and making sure enemies don't duck out of vision in bushes or the fog of war. "Healing effects" includes HP regeneration, lifesteal, and spellvamp. Ignite is a powerful choice against champions who rely heavily on healing, such as Vladimir.

Teleport (tp) is fantastic for making surprise plays across the map, getting back to lane quickly, or escaping enemies. It can be used on a a variety of allied units, including turrets, minions, and wards. Teleport is a channeled spell, and can be cancelled by the player or by enemy CC. If cancelled by the player, it will go on a reduced cooldown.

Smite is for use on jungle monsters. Secure the killing blow, or just kill them more quickly. It operates by a charge mechanic. Certain items modify Smite so it can be used on champions - see the chapter 'Closer Look: Jungling' to learn more. Smite also works on various enemy units, such as minions, Annie's bear Tibbers, Heimerdinger's turrets, and the bloblets from Zac's Cell Division.

Clarity and Mark/Dashare exclusive to the All Random, All Mid game mode. Clarity helps champions and teams that need lots of mana; Mark/Dash is best used for gap-closing and making initiations with tanks or assassins.

Masteries

A mastery is an option for bonus statistics and/or special attributes. There are 40 masteries organized into 3 skill trees: Ferocity, Cunning, and Resolve. Each tree has 5 tiers, and culminates in 3 extra-impactful Keystone Masteries.

Each of the 5 tiers forces a choice between two masteries. Players choose a mastery by placing a mastery point in an available slot. It takes 18 points to reach a Keystone, leaving 12 to use among the remaining trees. Mastery points are gained with summoner levels.

You can create up to 20 unique mastery pages that can be edited during champion selection or in your summoner profile.

Choosing Masteries

Mastery pages are all about meaningful choice - it's not possible to have all options, so choose the options best suited for a specific match and champion. Here are some questions that will help guide your choice:

Which Keystone mastery best enhances the champion's gameplay?

What statistics best help the champion perform their role?

What attributes best complement the champion, planned item build, and your own playstyle?

It's easiest to choose a mastery setup by working backwards from the best Keystone. In general, damage-focused champions should use a Keystone Mastery from either Ferocity or Cunning, and durability-focused champions from Resolve. Most utility-focused champions work well with Cunning or Resolve Keystones.

Quintessences (quints) are extra-powerful and provide stats from all categories, along with utility stats such as life steal, spell vamp, and movement speed.

Primary runes from each category provide the best stat values. Secondary runes provide stats from different categories in lesser amounts than their primary counterparts. For example, compare a Greater Seal of Armorwith a Greater Glyph of Armor.

Runes can only be placed into their matching category slots. There are 9 slots each for marks, seals, and glyphs, and 3 slots for quintessences.

Tiers

There are 3 tiers of runes, which become available at different summoner levels:

Lesser (level 1) and regular (level 10) runes give small bonuses for low cost, and feature a limited selection of Primary runes. Use them to experiment and familiarize yourself with the rune system.

Greater runes (level 20) give large bonuses for much higher cost, and introduce Secondary runes for a wide selection. These are ideal. Save up IP, and spend wisely!

Choosing Runes

Make well-rounded rune pages that grant 3-5 different stats. Specialize pages for a role or champion.

You can choose between flat or scaling runes. Flat give an unchanging value, while scaling gain value with champion level. Flat runes are considered safer, and give a stronger early start, while scaling trade early power for bigger payoff later (around level 9 for most).

Caveat - DO NOT buy Revive, GP10, Experience, or anything to do with energy/energy regeneration. These are newb traps.

There are 2 'basic' rune pages that are highly popular because nearly every champion can benefit from one or both. In fact, they are so popular that Riot Action Games permanently discounted these runes at 50% cost to help new players. I recommend you start with these 2 pages.

Both pages use:

9 Greater Seal of Armor to mitigate the physical damage from minion and champion attacks, which are significant threats early in the game no matter who you are facing.

9 Greater Glyph of Magic Resist for extra protection against magic damage, since most champions don't gain MR per level.

One page is for basic attack damage and AD-scaling champions. This page is also helpful for learning to last hit minions.

9 Greater Mark of Attack Damage

3 Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage

The other page is for magic damage and AP-scaling champions.

9 Greater Mark of Magic Penetration

3 Greater Quintessence of Ability Power

Summoner's Rift: Environment

Get acquainted with League's most popular arena, Summoner's Rift. Remember, you can create a custom game and explore for yourself!

Locations

Spawn & Shop (fountain): the dais where champions begin each game. Standing here rapidly replenishes health and mana. Use the recall function (B key) to return from any location. Items can only be purchased from here. Spawn is guarded by the Nexus Obelisk, a laser that kills things fast.

Base: the area bounded by walls that contains a Nexus. There is a gate in the middle of each wall that allies, but not enemies, can pass through.

Lanes: the 3 long, wide pathways guarded by turrets. Each has its own name - top, bottom (bot), and middle(mid).

River: the body of water that sits perpendicular to the lanes. 2 pits, one on each side of middle lane, are home to powerful neutral monsters.

Jungle: the quadrants between lanes characterized by narrow paths, terrain, and bushes. Each is mirrored, so that both sides of the map are identical. Neutral monsters live here.

Structures

Structures are destructible buildings. Each lane's structures must be destroyed sequentially, starting with the outermost. They take damage from basic attacks and a few abilities.

Turrets (towers): 3 of these guard each lane, firing powerful physical damage attacks at enemies who step in range. They only attack enemy champions when no minions are in range, or if an enemy damages an ally champions within their range. Damage against champions increases with each subsequent attack. Their defenses increase if no enemy minions are present. Turrets provide true sight, meaning stealthed units in vision range are revealed.

There are 3 kinds:

Outer (tier 1): basic, with slow yet powerful attacks.

Inner (tier 2, middle): same as Outer, but with more powerful attacks.

Inhibitor (tier 3) and Nexus: fire laser-like attacks which ignore 75% of enemies' armor. These also regenerate their health.

Inhibitors (inhibs): gem-like structures found at each base entrance. They do not attack, but are guarded by turrets. They take reduced damage from champions, regenerate health, and respawn 5 minutes after being destroyed. Respawn timers are shown as a colored ring (example). If an inhibitor is destroyed, the opposing team spawns extremely powerful minions in that lane.

Nexus: large gem-like structures found close to the spawn platforms, guarded by two Nexus turrets. Destroy the enemy Nexus to win!

Creatures

Minions: spawn from the Nexus and march down the lanes. Starting at 1:15 game time, a wave spawns every 30 seconds, each containing 6 minions (3 melee and 3 caster). Every third wave has a 7th, more powerful minion, known as a siege or cannon. Siege minions take 30% reduced damage from turrets, and are important allies.

Super minions: powerful and durable minions that spawn when an opposing Inhibitor is destroyed. They spawn with every wave, replacing any siege minions, and buff nearby minions, making entire waves more powerful and durable.

Monsters: the creatures found in the jungle and river. Monsters are "neutral" and will not attack until attacked. Each has varying amounts of health and damage - size is an indicator of power. Monsters follow fleeing attackers a short distance before resetting to their camp and rapidly regenerating health. A monster will reset when a thin bar above their HP indicating Patience drains and turns red. Camps respawn if, and only if, all its inhabitants are killed.

Regular monsters: The Murk Wolves, Raptors (birds), Krugs (stone beetle-turtles), and Gromp(massive toad) are found in between the lanes. First spawn is 1:40; respawn time is 100 seconds.

Buff monsters: The Blue Sentinel (blue buff) & Red Brambleback (red buff) are stronger monsters found at the center of a jungle quadrant. First spawn is 1:40; respawn time is 5 minutes.

The Rift Scuttlers wander each side of the river. They don't fight, but instead evade when attacked. First spawn is 1:40; respawn time is 3 minutes.

Dragon (drag, drake) is a fearsome monster that rests in the river pit near bottom lane. It knocks back enemies when taking flight, and its attacks deal a % of its target's current health. Dragon's attacks also splash, damaging units near its target. It is immune to CC. First spawn is 2:30; respawn time is 6 minutes.

The Rift Herald is found in the river pit near top lane. It's a tough, scary enemy that takes 35% reduced damage from ranged basic attacks, but has a vulnerable eye on its back. When this eye is open, basic attacks from behind deal massive bonus damage. First spawn is 4:00; respawn time is 5 minutes; the Herald de-spawns to make way for Baron Nashor at 19:55.

Baron Nashor (worm, nash, baron) is the most powerful monster on the Rift, found in the river pit near top lane, replacing The Rift Herald at 20 minutes into a game. Baron weakens its attackers so they deal less damage to him, and take increased damage from all sources. He also has a large arsenal of abilities, including a stun, slow, knockup, and knockback, some of which can be avoided. He is immune to CC. First spawn is 20:00; respawn time is 7 minutes.

Killing the largest monster in a camp grants various rewards. Some are extremely powerful. We'll talk about these in the chapters 'Summoner's Rift: Strategy' and 'Closer Look: Jungling'.

Summoner's Rift: Strategy

Battle on Summoner's Rift isn't a deathmatch. Victory doesn't just come from flashy moves and high kill scores, but also from strategic and purposeful play. This chapter will greatly prepare you for PvP!

Objectives

Primary objectives are the things your team won't win without. Secondary objectives are ways to get an extra edge, but don't underestimate their importance. They are often crucial steps to achieving primary objectives, or deciding factors in closely-matched games.

Primary Objectives:

Experience: Champions gain levels by earning experience, which increases base statistics and ability ranks. Experience is earned locally from dying minions, monsters, and champions, and is split among those in the area. It is also granted globally through structure kills and Baron Nashor.

Gold through minion & monster kills: To buy items, players need gold. Last hitting, dealing the killing blow to a minion or monster (termed creeps), is a player's greatest source of gold income. Last hits are recorded as a number called the creep score (CS). Building a higher creep score is calledfarming. Miss as few minion kills as you can!

Structure kills: The only way to win is by destroying the enemy's Nexus, and the only way to the Nexus is through Turrets and Inhibitors.

Turret kills give gold and experience to all allies, and removes enemy vision and protection. Once a turret is destroyed, your team can control that area. Minions can push further, threatening, or pressuring, other structures.

Destroying inhibitors and releasing super minions is extremely important, tantamount to adding a sixth player who relentlessly pressures the enemy's base. Protecting your inhibitors is as important as destroying the enemy's.

Secondary Objectives:

Vision Control: Place and protect wards, while destroying the enemy's. Learn more in the chapter 'Closer Look: Warding & Vision'.

Dragon: Killing Dragon grants local experience and a permanent, stacking buff to all allies calledDragon Slayer.

Aspect of the Dragon (5 stacks, repeatable): Doubles all other bonuses and your attacks burn enemies for 150 true damage over 5 seconds. Lasts 180 seconds. Kill the dragon again to regain Aspect of the Dragon after it times out.

Dragon kills are as important to take as they are to deny - Aspect of the Dragon is overwhelmingly strong!

The Rift Herald: Slaying the Rift Herald grants 50 gold to each teammate and drops a purple object. ANY champion can walk over this object to consume it and gain the buff Doom's Eve, which grants 10% increased damage, 40 movement speed, and a halved recall timer for 2 minutes. Minions near the buff-bearer gain attack speed and 100 range, which is useful for pushing down towers early.

Baron Nashor: Killing Baron grants gold, experience, and a buff called Hand of Baron to all teammates. The buff gives 40 AP and AD, halves recall time, and increases healing and movement speed after recalling. Most importantly, champions bearing the buff have an aura that massively empowers nearby minions. Hand of Baron makes a team a formidable siege force. Lasts 3 minutes.

Buff monster rewards: The Blue Sentinel and Red Brambleback grant buffs to their slayers. Protect them, and try to steal the enemy's. These transfer to a champion's killer.

The Crest of Cinders (red buff) gives health regeneration, plus extra damage and a slow to basic attacks. It's best to give red buff to an initiating fighter or tank, or a marksman.

Rift Scuttler: When "killed", a Rift Scuttler will bury itself in the riverbed, creating a circular area that grants vision for 75 seconds and a speed boost to allies that walk through it. Having this helps both secure or deny Dragon/Baron, and aids movement between lanes. Remember, the respawn time for the Scuttler is a hefty 3 minutes, so choose strategic times to kill it.

Kills are not objectives! They are a means to an end - controlling actual objectives. While killing champions gives substantial gold and experience bonuses, a numbers advantage, and is disturbingly satisfying, it is possible to win games with no kills.

A perfect example of a low-kill game is the professional match CLG vs Curse in the 2014 NA LCS Spring Split. CLG was able to push their advantage and completely beat Curse while only getting 4 kills. First Blood happens at an astounding 23 minutes into the game, and the game ends a mere 2 minutes later. CLG secured victory through superior objective control, prioritizing objectives above kills.

Game Phases

A game on Summoner's Rift has 3 distinct phases that transition as champions gain levels and items, and structures are destroyed:

Early Game (laning phase): Players focus on farming, denying farm and experience to opponents, and destroying outer turrets. Denying is accomplished by forcing opponents back to base through consistent harass, or by killing them. Basic items and components are purchased. Dragon and Rift Herald are realistic, but dangerous, objectives.

Mid Game: Players begin roaming and grouping for ambushes, or to concentrate on an objective. Skirmishes and team fights, battles between all 10 players, start occurring. Champions have surpassed level 6 and have one or two core items completed. Middle and inner turrets are the focus, along with Dragon, the Herald, and remaining outers. Vision control becomes more important. Baron is a realistic, but extremely dangerous objective.

Late Game: Champions are nearing level 18, have their core items completed, and are working towards full build (6 complete items). Inner turrets, Inhibitors, and Nexus turrets are the focus, along with Baron and Dragon. Grouping and team fights are common, as it is dangerous to be found alone. Respawn timers are now extremely long and have significant impact. Vision control is crucial to victory.

The Meta

The meta (metagame) is the unwritten rules that guide player decisions. Efficient strategies, popular or imbalanceditems and champions, game changes, and professional play all influence these "rules". Innovation and adaptation are encouraged, but understanding the meta is an important step to proficiency.

The meta is constantly shifting, but the foundation remains unchanged. To gain optimal amounts of gold and experience, teammates separate to different lanes during the early game:

Bot (Duo): A marksman and a support typically share one lane. Marksmen are initially weak and fragile champions who need gold, but not as much experience, to become powerful. Supports excel at protecting and empowering, and need little gold to do their jobs. These two make the perfect duo, sharing experience and allowing the marksman to take all last hits. Almost always, this duo lane goes to bottom to stay near Dragon, but it's possible to send them top to stay near the Rift Herald instead. (It's important to note that the term "support" is used refer to both the champion role and the duo-lane position. For example, it's popular to play mages like Brand in the support position, but this does not make Brand a support champion.)

Mid: Mages and assassins typically go solo in the mid lane. They benefit greatly from levels and gold, so sharing these is sub-optimal. The distance from turret to center-of-lane is shorter in mid than outer lanes, which offers extra safety to these fragile champions. The central location makes roaming for surprise attacks convenient.

Top: Fighters and tanks also benefit from solo gold and experience, but with their inherent durability, don't need the safety of the shorter mid lane. Certain mages with movement abilities or speed buffs are also less concerned about lane length. The duo lane is usually bottom, so top is the lane of choice for these champions.

Jungle: Champions that occupy the jungle, called junglers, primarily gain gold and experience by killing monsters, rather than sharing minions in a lane with another teammate. See the chapter 'Closer Look: Jungling' to learn more about this complex role.

Team Compositions

A team composition is the aspect created by the combination of synergistic champion attributes. A variety of roles, a mix of damage types, and complementary crowd control/utility are all things that benefit a composition's cohesiveness.

Forming strong compositions takes experience and communication. Focus first on learning your individual champions and determining your personal strengths. However, to help you understand the subject, I've listed common compositions below.

AoE: use multiple AoE abilities to create powerful combinations. For example, Amumu can lock down an entire team with his ultimate Curse of the Sad Mummy, allowing Miss Fortune and Annie to use their ults to full effect.

Poke: long-range, high-damage abilities are used to siege, rather than all-out fight. Xerath's Arcanopulse, Caitlyn's Piltover Peacemaker, and Jayce's Shock Blast are perfect examples. Champions such as Janna and Azir, who can control zones and keep enemies at a distance, work well with poke compositions.

Pick: high mobility, strong CC, and burst damage is used to catch enemies out of position and swiftly kill them. Supports like Thresh and Blitzcrank work well in pick comps, alongside assassins such as LeBlanc, Fizz, and Talon.

Dive: Dive is the opposite of poke; these comps love to get close and dirty. Durability, powerful CC, and sustained damage are used to overtake and overwhelm enemies. Shyvana, Olaf, and Leona are tanks that work well alongside champions such as Ahri, Sivir, Graves, and Rumble because of their strong initiation and/or follow-up.

Split push: pressure multiple lanes simultaneously to divide opponents. Capable duelists with strong wave clear require the enemy to send multiple champions to deal with them, forcing the rest of the enemy to fight outnumbered. Good split pushers are usually difficult to chase, and the summoner spell Teleport makes it easy for any champion to join their team at a moment's notice. Examples of split pushers are Udyr, Master Yi, Tryndamere, Jax, Singed, Zed, Shen (due to Stand United, and Twisted Fate (due to Destiny).

Closer Look: Jungling

The jungle lives up to its name. It can be difficult to succeed there, let alone survive. This chapter will put you on your way to becoming a seasoned trailblazer!

Jungling requires skilled decision making, efficient time management, and thorough game knowledge. Smite is required, and rune and mastery also have a large impact on a player's success.

The Jungler's Purpose

Rather than farming minions in a lane, a jungler farms monsters across the entire map. Towers and minions reveal the locations of laners, but junglers are hidden in the fog of war.

Junglers use this advantage in many ways. Ambushing enemy laners (called a gank) can put teammates ahead.Counterjungling, stealing monster kills from the enemy's side, denies the enemy jungler farm. Dueling their jungler, who might have low HP after clearing a camp, and either killing them or forcing them back to base, is another way to keep the enemy behind.

The Jungler's Tools

The jungling role revolves around the summoner spell Smite and the items Hunter's Talisman and Hunter's Machete. These are mandatory.

Smite is for securing the killing blow on monsters, clearing camps more quickly, and claiming a monster's Smite reward (see below). With item upgrades, it can be used on champions (see below). The charge mechanic allows flexiblity - gank often, farm heavily, alternate, or keep a charge on hand for important objectives.

Every jungler will start with either Hunter's Talisman or Hunter's Machete. Talisman is a more generalist start, while Machete specifically benefits basic attackers. Each grants extra damage against monsters, extra experience for killing them, and sustain through HP/mana regeneration. Only players who have Smite can purchase these.

The Hunter's items combine into 3 different items, each of which aid junglers in unique ways:

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Tracker's Knife is useful for all junglers, because wards give vision, vision gives information, and information is OP.

Stalker's Blade makes ganks more fearsome! Smite champions to damage them and steal their movement speed (slow them while boosting your own speed).

Skirmisher's Sabre is for duelists, who can Smite enemies to kick some ***! Once smote, the enemy takes more damage, deals less back, and is marked with vision so they can't sneak away.

These items can be enchanted by combining them with other items:

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When building these enchantments, follow the logic demonstrated in the chapter 'Items'.

The Raptors grant Razor Sharp, which signals when a ward spots you. For a short time, wards are revealed - if you can find them! Quick, check that bush over there! Use this to make your ganks sneakier.

The Krugs grant Gift of the Heavy Hands. Your basic attacks periodically stun monsters, and deal true damage to turrets (which consumes the buff). Use this to beat up other monster camps.

The Red Brambleback restores 20% of missing HP.

The Blue Sentinel restores 25% of missing mana.

(Killing any large monster will restore small amounts of health and mana, whether or not it has been smote.)

Jungling Champions

Technically, any champion can jungle, but some are better suited for the wild.

Good junglers must be able to farm efficiently, meaning they clear camps reasonably fast without taking too much damage. Champions with low-cooldown, AoE damage abilities and/or good single-target DPS are good picks.

Their abilities help them perform one or more of the tasks mentioned above: ganking, counterjungling, or dueling.

Closer Look: Warding & Vision

The vision system gives players control over the fog of war, the darkness that obscures vision around the map. Every player needs to understand this system, and contribute to vision control every game.

The free items called Trinkets are the foundation of vision. Sightstone and Tracker's Knife are additional options used by supports and junglers, respectively.

Trinkets

The 2 Trinkets are free items which have their own item slot:

The Warding Totem places wards, based on a charge system. After level 9, this can be transformed into the Farsight Alteration.

The Sweeping Lens (sweeper) scans for enemy units, disabling and revealing enemy wards for a short period so they can be destroyed or bypassed. After level 9, this can be transformed into the Oracle Alteration.

Players select one of these at the beginning of the game, and are given the Warding Totem by default if no selection is made before leaving the base.

Wards Defined

Wards are place-able objects that reveal an area of the map in a radius around them.

Trinket wards come from the Warding Totem. They are identified by a yellow orb, take 3 basic attacks to destroy, and become invisible 1 second after placement. Their duration grows with champion level, scaling from 60-120 seconds.

Farsight Wards come from the Farsight Alteration. They marked with a blue orb, take 1 basic attack to destroy, and are always visible. However, they last indefinitely.

Stealth Wards (greens) come from Sightstone and Tracker's Knife. They are identified by a green orb, and are just like Trinket wards, except they always last 3 minutes.

Vision Wards (pinks) do not come from trinkets, but are purchased in the shop. They last indefinitely, take 5 basic attacks to destroy, and are always visible. They grant true vision, which means they reveal invisible units such as stealth wards and Teemos.

Players can place up to 3 Trinket/Stealth wards and 1 vision ward. Wards can have skins, like champions, which change their appearance. The only constant identifiers are the HP bar and colored orb above the ward.

Using Wards

Warding is dynamic. It's not feasible to keep the entire map warded, so choose objectives to focus, and by anticipate what enemies will focus (such as a low HP turret or an exposed inhibitor).

Wards don't matter if you don't check your minimap consistently (at least every 10 seconds). Make it a habit!

Defensive wards provide advanced notice of incoming attacks. They can spot ganks during laning phase, or cover a team's flanks and rear during fights and sieges.

Offensive wards spot enemy movement on their side of the map, exposing them in vulnerable positions. They help a team control objectives like dragon and Baron. Use wards in lane bushes to help fight lane opponents.

The best places to ward are in bushes and high-traffic areas, such as jungle crossroads. Warding at the edges of brush, away from walls, maximizes vision range.

Vision wards are vulnerable and expensive. Use them in easily-defended areas or when denying enemy vision is of utmost importance (such as when fighting Baron).

Wards can be placed over terrain. Warding over walls can be safer and more convenient.

If the target location is inside terrain, your ward will be displaced when planted. You can use this displacement to extend your ward planting range!

Wards leave behind rubble when they die. This looks like a small rock with an orb over it. Pay attention to where your enemies are warding, and use sweepers/pinks accordingly.

This image shows common warding locations. Pink spots are suited for both vision and stealth wards, yellow for stealth only. These locations are mirrored on each side of the river. Remember, the best place to ward is wherever you need vision. These are suggestions; don't limit yourself!

Your cursor becomes a crosshair when placing wards. It is blue by default, but will turn green if the target location is in brush. It will turn gold if in terrain. Use this to avoid misplacing wards.

A number indicating how many wards you currently have placed appears next to the crosshair. If you are about to exceed the limit, the number is red, and an "x" on the minimap shows which ward will be removed.

Interface & Commands

The Heads-Up Display (HUD)

The HUD delivers delivers crucial information, so it's important to know what you're looking at. Here is an imagethat shows the HUD components together; below, I'll describe each individual part.

Items, Trinket, & Gold: your inventory. Drag and drop to rearrange items to preferred hotkeys. Item icons show cooldowns and other information. Hover your cursor over icons to read details. The button that displays your gold also opens the shop.

Minimap

This overview of the entire map shows the position of champions and minions not obscured by the Fog of War. Left-click it to move your camera, right-click to move your champion. Hover the cursor over structures to view their HP. Some movement and long-range abilities can be cast by targeting the map.

Above the minimap are your allies' champion portraits, which show their respawn timer, current HP and mana, and ultimate availability (the dot above each portrait). Targeted abilities can be cast on these portraits.

Left-click a unit to view its stats. In this example, I've selected the enemy champion Miss Fortune, and can see her stats, items, HP and mana, creep score, KDA, and a status icon representing the passive effect Strut.

Use the loudspeaker icon to mute/unmute players' chat messages. Hover the cursor over a champion portrait to read the player's name.

The scoreboard only updates when a champion is not in the Fog of War. Hidden champions have a '?' next to them.

The Monster Timers above the scoreboard indicate Baron (purple), Dragon (orange), and buff monster respawns. You will always be notified when Dragon and Baron are slain, but you must have vision of a buff monster camp's death to get its respawn timer.

Game Info

From left to right: team kill score, KDA, creep score, game time, connection strength indicator. Underneath are optional ping and FPS numbers.

Tooltips

Mouse over interface elements (such as your ability icons, or an enemy's item on the scoreboard) to reveal tooltips stating exactly what they represent. This example is from an unplaced ability point for Caitlyn's Piltover Peacemaker, and it shows what changes with the next rank.

In tooltips, statistics are represented by this color code: AP, AD, armor, MR, HP, and mana. Base amounts sometimes are indicated in different colors than bonus amounts.

Pings

Use pings to quickly communicate with your teammates.

Alert ping (A): ALT+left click, or G. Use on an enemy to Target them (B), and on allies, to Request Aid (C).

Caution ping (D): CTRL+left click, or V. Use on a unit to issue a Retreat ping (E).

Radial Menu: Hold ALT or CTRL+left mouse button to view the radial menu. Move your cursor in the direction of the ping you want to issue. This can be done in a single, swift motion.

Chat

Hit Enter to open chat, type your message or command, then hit Enter again to send and close chat. ESC closes chat without sending. View the chat history by pressing Z. Click and drag the top bar after opening to move the window. Important notifications such as pings are announced automatically in chat, so make sure your time stamps are turned on.

Chat Commands:

'/w "summoner name" ': send a message to out-of-game friends.

'/r': reply to the last message received from an out-of-game friend.

'/all': send a message visible to both teams. Shift+Enter will open the chat window in this mode. Visibility of /all chat can be toggled in the Options menu.

Addendum

Terminology

The spoiler below contains important abbreviations and jargon. Item and champion abbreviations, for the most part, are intuitive enough to not be listed.

ad: the abbreviation for attack damage is sometimes used to mean physical damage

afk: away from keyboard. Not always used literally.

aggro: to draw attacks. Ex. "turret aggro'd me because I was ahead of my minions"

ap: the abbreviation for ability power is sometimes used to mean magic damage

ARAM: All Random, All Mid. A game mode.

b: return to base (e.g., "need to b, low hp")

bait: to trick an opponent into over-committing by disguising an advantage, or lure them into positional errors by feinting towards an objective.

backdoor: to sneak behind the enemy team and destroy a structure.

bg: bad game

bm: bad mannered (unsportsmanlike)

bot: usually refers to bottom lane, can also refer to AI.

camp: when a jungler spends the majority of their time ganking one lane

carry: noun: a champion whose primary purpose is to deal damage. verb: to be primarily responsible for a team's victory.

caster: a champion that emphasizes ability usage. Used to distinguish certain Marksmen and Fighters from attack-based ones.

cheese: a strategy regarded as cheap, unfair, or contrary to intended gameplay. Cheese strategies rely on unexpectedness to be effective, and usually backfire if they don't immediately work.

clutch: just in time, e.g., "clutch Wish I was almost dead"

counterengage: to turn the favorability of a fight. Champions said to have counterengage have abilities that capitalize off the actions of enemies.

counterjungle: to steal last hits from the enemy jungler and disrupt their route.

creep block: when a group of minions or monsters impedes champion movement, creating a glitch-like sticking effect.

db, double buff: having both red and blue buff at the same time.

dc: disconnected

disengage: to leave a fight. Champions said to have strong disengage have abilities that allow allies to escape.

ELO: the old matchmaking rating system. This term is used as a synonym for MMR.

engage: to start a fight. Champions said to have engage have abilities that allow your allies to start a fight in a favorable position.

worth / wurf: said to acknowledge a favorable trade (such as dying in order to secure an objective). Often used sarcastically and said in /all chat after making a mistake.

wp: well played

yw: you're welcome

If you want to be an Encyclopedia Brown of League, check out the terminology page from the MOBAFire wiki.

Resources

Be aware that LoL evolves, and community-made resources may fall out-of-date. Watch live streams to observe the most up-to-date gameplay.

Read patch notes and news, learn about the game, and browse the Boards (forum) on the official League of Legends website.

Get technical help and ask questions at Player Support.

LoL Esports is Riot Game's website for professional play.

The League of Legends Wikia is packed with information about every facet of League. It's user edited, so sometimes information is outdated or inaccurate, but 95% of the time, it works every time. SERIOUSLY BOOKMARK THIS WEBSITE OR ELSE

OP.GG and LoLKing allow you to view game information such as a player's runes, masteries, match histories, and performance statistics, including those of professional players. This is helpful for learning from other players or evaluating your own play.

LoLNexus finds information about all the players in a current game. Use it to view your allies' and enemies' rune and mastery setups.

ProBuilds lets you see what item builds professional players are using. You can search by champion or by player.

/r/SummonerSchool is a forum to ask questions and get answers.

LoL Class professional-made video guides for many aspects of the game.

SoloMid and LoLPro host professional and amateur guides, similar to MOBAFire.

2ez.gg is a highly customizable tool that puts all the resources you want in one place.

Twitch hosts live streams of video games. Search by game to explore League streams, look up your favorite pro players, or check out these popular channels:

Azubu is a streaming site similar to Twitch. It's less popular, but professional Korean players stream here.

YouTube is where most educators and entertainers post their video content. I personally don't use YT much and can only recommend these channels:

UNSW LoL Society has made Leaguecraft 101, a thorough and well-presented series of video lectures focused on subjects like positioning, mechanics, trading, and last hitting. I consider this series 'must-watch'.

Protatomonster breaks down amazing plays. Check out this channel to see mechanical outplays, smart decisions, and team synergy.

lastshadow9 (imls on Twitch) is a masterful player who produces coaching videos dealing with everything from champion mechanics to player psychology.

/r/LeagueofLegends hosts all kinds of League-related content. It is probably the largest western LoL community. Important news makes it here, along with fun things like memes, videos, fan art, and cosplays. A significant number of Riot employees are active on Reddit. (Personal caveat: there are as many useless posts as there are useful, sometimes more. The majority of comments are hot air, hearsay, or stupid memes.)

Surrender@20 hosts League news such as patch notes, Riot forum posts, and the latest PBE content.

Liquid Legends is a LoL forum hosted by an influential eSports organization.

OnGamers and GameSpot host news and interviews with professional players.

eSportspedia is a professional play wiki.

This game developer blog post is a good read that will help you get acquainted with the design values behind this wonderful game.

Learn to CS with Elyndar (edited by me :3). Elyndar has written a brief guide with math, motivation, and tips on perfecting your creep score.

Pro player CLG Link wrote an insightful blog post on improving as a player.

Determine your team's mid- and late-game strengths in order to close out games.

Surelia's Zoning Tutorial, a golden oldie.

Learn more about positioning. This is written for duo lanes, but the concept is relevant to all players.

Reddit post 9 Attributes of Skilled Players and follow-up post 9 attributes of each rank and how to climb

Additional Lessons

Beginner advice:

Facechecking: walking into a bush to see inside it. This often results in an ambush. Wards, Scrying Orbs, and skillshots are safer ways to scout for enemies.

Diving: attacking enemies under their own turret. This can be done properly, but diving senselessly usually results in your own death and can even lure allies to do the same.

Overextending: straying from the safe zones of allied turrets, wards, and champions. Use wards to create safe zones.

Chasing: sacrificing time and safe positioning to pursue an enemy.

Over-commitment: placing oneself and teammates in a 'no-turning-back' situation with little chance of success, or giving the enemy opportunity to turn a favorable situation around. (Examples: diving, investing too many abilities for a single kill and having nothing to fight remaining enemies.)

Tunnel vision: a loss of awareness brought about by focusing on one specific goal or piece of information while ignoring everything else.

Standing too closely to allies: often called grouping or stacking, this is dangerous against enemies with AoE abilities.

Underestimating minions: individually weak, but powerful as a group, their damage can determine a fight. Large waves can take down turrets and inhibitors. Minions that are attacking you have a small alert icon above their health bars.

Implement these ASAP!

Map awareness: be aware of what's going on outside of your immediate area by checking your minimap every few seconds, and moving the camera when appropriate. Note where your allies and enemies are (or might be). Noticing missing enemies will help you avoid ambushes, and seeing allies movements will let you prepare to back up their plays.

Kiting: constantly re-positioning to maintain range. Never stand still - weave attacks and abilities in between movements. Many ranged champions have abilities that help them keep enemies away, such as dashes, slows, or snares.

Peeling: using CC abilities to keep enemies away from teammates.

Interacting with terrain: learn what movement abilities allow your champion to cross terrain, and how to use them properly (little feels worse than faceplanting into the wall you tried to Flash over). Most skill shots can pass through terrain (watch that Rocket Grab!), and targeted abilities and basic attacks can be used on enemies across walls as long as they're in range and in vision.

Dodging: predict and react to enemy attacks. Side-stepping will generally keep you safer than moving in straight lines. Skill shots can be juked, but basic attacks, turret shots, and targeted abilities can't be, so don't waste Flash trying to escape death if you see one of these projectiles in transit!

Positioning: the strategic placement of your champion relative to other units. All units have azone of control from their attack and ability ranges. Knowing the zones of your allies and enemies will help you make correct positioning decisions, such as where you stand in lane, how you approach a fight, and where you choose to fight. Areas in the fog of war and unrevealed brush should be treated as your enemy's zone.

Your champion's role helps determine positioning during teamfights. Tanks and fighters typically form a team's front line, because of their short ranges and ability to absorb damage. Fragile, ranged champions like marksmen and mages make up a team's back line, where they deal damage from a distance, protected by their frontline. Supports are the mid line, helping initiate on the front line or protecting their back line as needed. Assassins use their mobility to dance between different positions, keeping themselves safe and diving in when an opportunity presents itself.

Team fights are always messy. Sometimes playing risky and far forward as a mage or marksman can pay off. Often tanks and fighters need to join supports in the mid line to protect their back line. As you gain experience, you'll learn to read situations and make better decisions.

Quickcasting eliminates the need to left click to cast an ability, and instead casts an ability immediately on key press. This allows for more fluid ability usage, and can save valuable fractions of seconds in combat.

The option to display range indicators while using Quick Cast is a commonly used medium that I strongly recommend. Using this setting, casts occur upon key release. Holding a key will display the normal targeting indicator. Left clicking will cancel the operation.

Individual abilities can be set to Quickcast or normal cast--you don't have to choose all or none.

You can find all these settings in the Options menu in game

By default, your view is centered on your champion. This is fine while you're learning how to control your champion, but limits your awareness and restricts your field of view. Eventually, you'll need to unlock the camera, allowing you to use the cursor to direct your view.

Unlock the camera using the Y key or the icon next to the minimap. If needed, hold the spacebar to re-center the camera on your champion, and release it to move the camera. Left-clicking the minimap will also move the camera.

Intermediate Concepts:

Pushing a wave of minions is an obvious and simple tactic. Quickly killing enemy minions will advance your minions closer to the enemy's base, which will threaten damage to their structures. Pushing your minions into an enemy turret is also an effective way of denying your enemy last hits, if they are unable to kill the minions before their turret does.

Freezing means halting a minion wave's advance to keep it in a favorable position. For example, freezing the minions just outside of your turret range allows you to farm safely without losing last hits to the turret, while your opponent has to remain close to your turret and vulnerable in order to last hit. To freeze a wave, deal only as much damage to the opposing wave as your wave is taking. If there is no enemy champion attacking your minions, this means last hitting at the last possible moment.

You can stall a minion wave by letting it attack you while your wave approaches. Be careful doing this at early levels, when your base armor and hitpoints are low.

Slow pushing is building a massive wave of minions which overpowers each enemy wave encountered and continually grows in numbers. Large enough waves can threaten structures and demand attention from enemy champions. To begin a slow push, kill the 3 caster minions in a wave, but leave the melee minions. This removes half the wave's DPS, but leaves more than half of its HP. This means it will take time for your wave to advance, but it won't take much damage, allowing waves to build up.

Mechanics, in short, are a player's skill at controlling their champions and game.

Out-of-game, this refer's to a player's coordination, accuracy, precision, speed, and reflexes with mouse movements and keystrokes.

In-game, this means using practiced and thorough knowledge of different commands, and a champion's attacks, abilities, and animations, to play with utmost effectiveness.

Mechanics are a matter of mastery that start with intuitively knowing your cursor's position on screen and your hand's position on the keyboard. Be patient and deliberate with your practice. Strive to improve your muscle memory and reflexes.

Let's look at specific in-game mechanics:

Pacing is making a champion walk back-and-forth in a confined area. Do this with rapidly alternating clicks. Players do this because standing still makes for an easy, predictable target.

Stop (S-key) is a handy command. Your champion stands still and won't attack.

Attack Move (A-key) is a special move command. Your champion will automatically stop to attack the closest enemy. Using attack move is situational and preferential, but can be helpful in avoiding misclicks, and make kiting backwards easier by eliminating the need for rapid back-and-forth cursor movement. I suggest rebinding this from 'Attack Move' to 'Attack Move Click' in the Options menu.

Animation canceling is issuing a command while an ability or attack is in progress, cancelling extraneous animations. This allows movements, abilities, and attacks to overlap, enhancing speed and fluidity. Using Flash to cancel animations is a common trick used by high-level players. Experiment for yourself, or search the internet to learn about animation cancelling with specific champions and abilities.

Stutter-stepping (orb-walking) is a form of animation cancelling performed by alternating move commands with attack commands. This cancels the basic attack animation, freeing your champion to move. Be careful - moving too soon can cancel the attack itself.

Direct Input (DI) is a technique for smoother, nuanced movement. When you issue a move command, the game creates path your champion follows (illustrated by a line on your minimap). This path can get blocked by moving units like minions, resulting in a 'sticking' phenomenon called creep block, when your champion attempts to move in multiple directions simultaneously or is unable to move at all. DI is the practice of clicking close to your champion and manually pathing around obstacles, rather than relying on the game's automatic pathing. This habit has the added benefit of more reactive movement - watch how fluidly Faker, the Orianna player in the video, is able to sidestep enemy abilities.

Conclusion, Change Log, & Credits

Congratulations on reaching the end! I hope that you enjoyed my guide and have been bettered by it. If you have, please support it by sharing, commenting, upvoting, or giving me +rep!

I have an admonition to make. LoL's players have earned a reputation for toxicity and immaturity, and I would like to see this change. The best thing you can do for yourself and the community is to play with the right attitude. Play for fun, be open and willing to learn, and be encouraging to teammates as well as yourself. The Summoner's Code is a great set of guidelines in and outside of the game - learn it, and abide by it!

Participate in The Tribunal, if you have time. Judging other's poor behavior can give you insight to your own.(Tribunal getting reworked, currently unavailable)

2016/4/23 Added a note about Jhin's basic attacks, edited Mastery advice in regards to Keystones, tweaked some formatting, and removed mention of the Dominion game mode (RIP).

2016/2/25 Added Shen to the jungler list for 6.4.

2016/2/17 Updated the dragon buff list for 6.3.

2016/2/6 Added Graves to the jungler list.

2016/1/13 First change of the year! Made some small updates to keep up with game changes, added a small explanation of ranged auto attack projectiles.

2015/12/31 Last change of the year?! Fixed a mention of Ashe's old passive, Ignite's old interaction with healing from outside sources, and included info about the Rift Herald's dropped buff object and monster Patience.

2015/4/20 Fixed wrong information left over from the removal of Revive.

2015/3/25 Fixed title character length to match website constraints.

2015/3/21 Changed title for better Google results.

2015/3/13 Replaced 'Juggernaut' with 'Cinderhulk'

2015/3/11 Added a blurb about what LoL is, exactly. Used keywords like "MOBA" and "real-time strategy" and "resources" to show off how much I know about video games.

2015/2/25 Removed Revive for 5.4, may it stay dead this time

2015/2/20 Made some clarity changes. Made a note about champion sales in 'Getting Started'.

2015/2/13 Fixed a formatting bug. Took the opportunity to edit other writing and formatting throughout. Added skill order advice to 'Abilities', Olaf to the list of junglers, LoL Class to the resources, and some terminology.

2015/1/16 Expanded the mechanics lesson and cleaned up the Addendum chapter overall.

Special thanks goes to:

Cestian, for taking the time to teach a random newb.DaBrownCharizard, Knoxycotten, Animositty, and Suprar15 for introducing me to the game.dudandwiggles for the awesome Nami picture.Reddit user Fornoitdoesnt, for translating the guide to French!

LoL Essentials | League of Legends New Player/Beginner Guide Kommentare